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You may have missed this one: Panel declares Bush/Cheney committed torture

The panel was headed by two former members of Congress, one Republican and one Democratic. Both had worked in administrations in addition to serving in Congress, Asa Hutchinson and James Jones.

Mr. Hutchinson served in the Bush administration including a high level position at Homeland Security: Here is his perspective:

Mr. Hutchinson, who served in the Bush administration as chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration and under secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said he â€œtook convincingâ€ on the torture issue. But after the panelâ€™s nearly two years of research, he said he had no doubts about what the United States did.

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â€œThis has not been an easy inquiry for me, because I know many of the players,â€ Mr. Hutchinson said in an interview. He said he thought everyone involved in decisions, from Mr. Bush down, had acted in good faith, in a desperate effort to try to prevent more attacks.â€œBut I just think we learn from history,â€ Mr. Hutchinson said. â€œItâ€™s incredibly important to have an accurate account not just of what happened but of how decisions were made.â€He added, â€œThe United States has a historic and unique character, and part of that character is that we do not torture.â€

I just hope at least one of my tax dollars paid for some kind of torture. I would be honored to be a sponsor of the methods that have produced the kind of intelligence that led Obama to kill bin laden. Leave it to the left to feel sorry for terrorists who plot to kill americans.

On the contrary, Obama just kills terrorists with drones. Even americans citizens. So I guess you decide which is more shocking, killing americans without a trial or torturing enemy combatants for intelligence.

Glancing at the article, it sounds like they weren't sure if the bolded part below would be defined as torture. Then the panel decided they believe it does constitute torture.

But the reportâ€™s main significance may be its attempt to assess what the United States government did in the years after 2001 and how it should be judged. The C.I.A. not only waterboarded prisoners, but slammed them into walls, chained them in uncomfortable positions for hours, stripped them of clothing and kept them awake for days on end.

The question of whether those methods amounted to torture is a historically and legally momentous issue that has been debated for more than a decade inside and outside the government. The Justice Departmentâ€™s Office of Legal Counsel wrote a series of legal opinions from 2002 to 2005 concluding that the methods were not torture if used under strict rules; all the memos were later withdrawn. News organizations have wrestled with whether to label the brutal methods unequivocally as torture in the face of some government officialsâ€™ claims that they were not.

To this day the people that have kept claiming that torture saved a lot of lives and gained a lot of intelligence have been Cheney and his supporters. Much of their "proofs" turned out to be completely fallacious.

and hey o-nation: I know the only thing you care about is who is in power in the US...but if you do want lower insurance rates...refer to the infographic I provided in the doctor thread and check out how Americans pay over $8k/person in total health care...with more than 1/2 of it being paid by private insurance and private cash...while the next highest nations pay no more than $5400/person and the average per nation is less than $4k/person.

you have a "cute way with words" why don't you rail against the drug manufacturers and the hospitals. It looks like they are the major reasons costs are so high and your insurance costs have gone up.

....or maybe if you or one of your family members has a hospital stay you will happily pay $70+ for use of a box of gauze that the hospital bought for $1.00.

and btw o-nation I was gonna write about the passing of Margaret Thatcher. I think she did a great job over all, deeply controversial, and hated by some...but man she moved GB into the future...didn't she. Why don't you write about her. (missed that one too)

Rebecca: I hate those two terrorists and the killing and damage they did to folks in Boston. I was mouthing off quite a bit. I do believe after a bit I eased off my initial gut responses and spoke to the fact that we should follow the rule of law. Hopefully he gets the death penalty in this case. I would prefer that if he gets it, he doesn't have a long time to delay it.

As to torture I go with McCain. He experienced it. He doesn't believe Americans should use it. Its one of the things that make the USA different from so many other horrible nations around the world.

you have a "cute way with words" why don't you rail against the drug manufacturers and the hospitals. It looks like they are the major reasons costs are so high and your insurance costs have gone up.

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Maybe you didn't read my posts from the other thread on the topic. There I had no more of an issue railing against Hospitals and Drug companies than I do putting a Ralph Nader link at the bottom of every one of my posts. That is what it means to be a moderate or an independent. Conversely, being an independent doesn't allow me to ignore the catastrophic effect ObamaCare is having on the cost of health insurance, while at the very same time boosting the profits of those already profiting from the broken system, namely the hospitals.

Its also why I don't waste my time opening new posts about "Torture" or "Gun control", especially when those posts target an administration that has been out of power for more than half a decade. Its like closing the barn door after the horse has already left.

and btw o-nation I was gonna write about the passing of Margaret Thatcher. I think she did a great job over all, deeply controversial, and hated by some...but man she moved GB into the future...didn't she. Why don't you write about her. (missed that one too)

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Not my job to eulogize Maggie, but lets be fair, only the uneducated moon bats have anything bad to say about her.

Regarding torture, water boarding may well be torture, but there is a far cry between being water boarding, sleep deprivation, and psychological warfare vs pulling of finger nails smashing teeth, purposefully murdering women and children, and shooting detainees. With those very crucial differences in mind, I could not care less how many prisoners of war were water boarded (tortured), or how many times it happened. Its war. We are there to kill people, not arrest people.

What I do take issue with is a perpetual state of war, without a named nation state on as an opponent, where anyone can be classified as an enemy combatant. War has it's own rules, for circumstances that have little to do with civil rights. For that system to work, it has to be the exception, not the rule.

Its also why I don't waste my time opening new posts about "Torture" or "Gun control", especially when those posts target an administration that has been out of power for more than half a decade. Its like closing the barn door after the horse has already left.

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you initiate posts all the time. The study was published in April. Very current. Those who ignore the past will tend to repeat it. Its a good thing of which to be aware.

Not my job to eulogize Maggie, but lets be fair, only the uneducated moon bats have anything bad to say about her.

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LOL. I'm sure those in Britain who hate her and probably lost their work because of her actions would disagree with you. I think she was a transcendant person in history, with huge impact, and probably helped bring Britain into the 21st century.

What I do take issue with is a perpetual state of war, without a named nation state on as an opponent, where anyone can be classified as an enemy combatant. War has it's own rules, for circumstances that have little to do with civil rights. For that system to work, it has to be the exception, not the rule.

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so in other words you think that in that there are al queda groups and associated groups all over the world in different select nations....they can attack us but you don't want us to defend ourselves because they aren't a "nation"

so in other words you think that in that there are al queda groups and associated groups all over the world in different select nations....they can attack us but you don't want us to defend ourselves because they aren't a "nation"

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Ignoring for a moment the fact that I said nothing anything remotely close to that, do you think terrorists magically came into existence in 2001, and prior to that date, there were no angry muzzies seeking to kill Americans?

If not, I have several other concepts we should go to war with. Stupidity. Political Correctness. These concepts are quite literally destroying our nation from the inside out, and have been for a very long time. Lets declare war on these concepts, and suspend civil rights in our righteous battle. We should start off by water boarding Nancy Pelosi to find out why she hates America so much.

In the 1940s, when the Japanese rolled into Pearl Harbor and killed a bunch of our citizens, we took the Japanese people in America and put them in camps. We then rolled through south east asia and became the only nation to drop nuclear weapons on a civilian population at time when the Japanese had basically already surrendered. This is how wars are won.

Conversely, wars are not won by putting cameras in every living room, searching grandma's depends as she tries to board an airplane, or paying over $100k in welfare benefits to a Muslim family from a state known for Muslim terrorist activity so they can live the good life in Boston. Suspending civil rights for an indefinite war against a concept is just a good way to collectively commit suicide as a nation.

Obama's unlimited warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, Indefinite detention without charge or trial, Targeted killings of ANYONE by drone without any pretense of due process (even US citizens)...

Wow, George W. Bush looks like a liberal pussy compared to Barack Obama.

Corwin: You continuously astound me. After the storm hit Long Island you were wailing and wailing for govt support. You ripped the govt. Then it came to your neighborhood and family and you apologized.

Then you went around on the internet atacking the dems for wanting to provide the same level of support for this horrible storm as the US did for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. I suspect if the folks on Long Island had heard you they would kicked your butt every which way.

Of course the Congressman from the Mississippi gulf coast actually voted against these funds the first time and his constituents called him out as the worst kind of creep. They were saved by the large emergency funds from the US. They had the common sense to realize if it applies to the Gulf Coast it applies similarly around the nation.

Just recently you expressed the horror and problems associated with killer terrorists on the loose in Boston...how the city was shut down and how eerie and scary it was. You were one of the many who were happy and relieved to see the terrorists caught.

You want terrorists running around the middle east taking over nations, and recreating the Afghanistan that safely housed Al Queda that attacked the US???

Here are some choices. Choose one.

The US restarts the draft, builds the military to 4,5, 6 million active duty soldiers and sends hundreds of thousands into 'Afghanistan/Pakistan to wipe out terrorism there. We'll need a lot of soldiers. If there is one thing we learned from Bush was that we didn't have enough soldiers on the ground to fight in the middle east successfully in 2 wars.

In effect your bud, O-nation just acknowledged that, referencing what occurred in WWII. He only mentioned Japan. The US had its largest army ever, with a much smaller population, fought against two huge military forces, had enormous allies in Europe and North Africa but basically no similarly large allies in East Asia, and was part of an allied force that ended WWII 6 years after it started, 4 years after we entered the war. Germany and Japan were crushed and disarmed.

Subsequent to 9/11 we were in two never ending wars, dripping and draining America, fighting these wars with limited troops. They've gone on forever. Iraq is a mess. Shiite-Sunni violence is increasing. Afghanistan is a mess. Once we leave I bet either the fundamentalists come in and take it over again and/or China comes in with a million plus troops, crushes everyone and turns it into a natural resource haven for the Chinese economy. Supposedly from people who study this stuff China really would rather not fight...but wtf, Afghanistan is next door...and those Chinese love those resources.

The recently published panel that studied this didn't claim it. McCain who knows torture first hand isn't claiming this. Nobody claims this but Corwin. As usual, a completely unbelievable source.

I don't like drones...but what would you do? Would you send in massive volumes of troops? Would you do nothing? Would you welcome terrorists taking over countries with open arms??? You didn't seem to have that attitude when terrorists were stalking the streets of Boston.

There are few good alternatives when dealing with the problems of fundamental Islamic terrorism. If the native nations and dominant cultures of the middle east won't deal with it....its going to be around for a long time.

There are many good solutions, just none the Democrats would ever adopt. Start with profiling your airline passengers (duh) and end the TSA. ElAl has been flying without terrorist incident since the 70s, and they must by far be the single most desirable target for terrorist activity.

Treat terrorist states as terrorist states, not as potentially nice states that just so happen to support terrorism at the current moment but tend to leave us alone so long as we send them billions of dollars. Read Pakistan. Read Egypt. Read Yemen. States that support terrorism have no need for a US embassy there, and we have no need to accept their citizens, immigrants, or their flights within our borders.

Round up the muzzies. I don't care if you are white, black, brown, or yellow. If you embrace Islam in this country, you go on a watch list.

Get our drones out of Pakistan, Syria, Lybia, Egypt, Niger, and everywhere else we are not at war.F' those people. If life teaches you anything, it is that breaking up a fight always gets you hit, and sometimes hated. They want to oppress and butcher each other, let em. There are far too many people on this planet as it is.

Aggressively implement the Bush Doctrine. They pull a knife, you pull a gun. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send on of theirs to the morgue.

And screw nation building. Afghanistan was a shithole before, it will be a shithole after, more than likely, it will always be a shithole. When we found out it was Afghanistan, we should have just flown in several sorties of tactical nukes or daisy cutters and flattened the place without ever putting a set of boots on the ground. You would be amazed how quickly Saddam Hussein would have been offering oral copulation instead of veiled threats afterward.

Why is it you zealously denounce Bush when he engages in what you call "torture", yet in your past post you passionately defend Obama when he engages in torture and a whole lot more?

And what's wrong with me supporting what the government is LEGALLY supposed to do (FEMA) yet I'm against the government doing things that are clearly ILLEGAL (killing Americans without due process) - REGARDLESS OF PARTY???

As I have written before, I am against illegal actions such as torture - regardless of party. You, on the other hand, do not see actions - you only see party. Don't you see that? Can't you see that?

I really do think that you were born without a functional sense of irony. They could build monuments to your hypocrisy.

O-nation: your solutions are not bush's solutions. He did spend a lot of time and immense amounts of money on nation building. It doesn't look like its gonna work for the long term. Iraq is currently experiencing huge increases in shiite/sunni violence. Afghanistan is a friggin mess. When we leave I think it will go down again.

Nobody knows what works over the long term. There are only opinions. Putin has been brutalizing the Chechens for about a decade. It could be they are more friggin prone to huge attacks. Those two Chechen terrorists in Boston sucked up a jihadist attitude.

Of course every time the chechans make a big move to threaten the Russians Putin sends in massive firepower of one sort or another and all the innocents die. Its not a pretty picture on anyone's radar screen especially if you are a Russian or a Chechan.

We have been the world's cops for decades, at least going back to post WWII Had we not been doing that the Soviets would have rolled over far more of Europe. We have kept oil flowing to the entire world regardless of the many brutal regimes in the middle east. The US benefits and the rest of the world benefits. Since WWII there have been many brutal dictators and brutal nationalists intent on expanding their terror to more and more countries. None of them have taken on the size and scope of Hitler in Europe and Africa and the Japanese pre WWII. (Well maybe China is doing it...but its not doing it with massive armies and massive wars ).

We have a lot of "allies" but many of them s*ck. We have nothing in common with the Gulf Arabs that provide oil and are our allies...other than we both want to see a lot of oil being available.

btw: It took troops on the ground to capture Saddam. We used troops to kill bin laden.

Rounding up "muzzies". Well that is about as anti-American as it comes. Its something we have done in the past as you referenced with Japanese Americans during WWII. Following that period we made reparations to those that were sent to internment camps. Its generally described as a black mark on America's past as a land of the free. Its considered a mistake. While that occurred we didn't round up German or Italian Americans. And therein lies the issue.

You'll ravage anyone who isn't a White American whenever you feel like it. That is a strong perspective on the deep right wing. Its most probably why Obama won the national election last year. Every year the demographics of the US changes ever more so. Its an attitude that will lose a lot more elections.

Frankly if you wore an Islamic turban every day of your life on a regular basis you could take your attitude about rounding up muzzies and substitute it for Whites and you'd sound just like a terrorist.

Earlpearl, I'm not sure why an old guy like yourself needs an old guy like me to provide you history lessons. Lets go through your errors one at a time:

1) "your solutions are not bush's solutions"
Good point. Not sure exactly where you came down thinking I agreed with all of Bush's solutions. I said we need to implement the Bush Doctrine, which has nothing to do with nation building and everything to do with nation destroying. In Bush's words, "We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime".

2) "Nobody knows what works over the long term."
Sure we do. We occupied Japan and Europe with an iron fist while we implemented the Marshal Plan(Nation building). No modern day president has the stomach for that, so it's off the table. It involves permanent bases, use of US contractors and exploitation of resources, all things our liberal presidents like Bush suddenly decided are taboo.

2) "Putin has been brutalizing the Chechens for about a decade"
Chechens have been trying to secede for far longer than a decade. They are hard core Muslims only about a hundred miles North of Iran. Putin deals with the "problem" the way Russia deals with most problems.

3) "We have been the world's cops for decades, at least going back to post WWII"
We were also the worlds sole superpower for decades. We are no longer fighting the cold war, and China is every bit the adversary that the USSR ever was. Are you proposing we remain the world's police while at the same time ceding our sole superpower status? Sounds like a great way to go broke.

4) "We have kept oil flowing to the entire world regardless of the many brutal regimes in the middle east. The US benefits and the rest of the world benefits. Since WWII there have been many brutal dictators and brutal nationalists intent on expanding their terror to more and more countries."
Oh yes, Carter Doctrine. I'm well familiar with it. I like how you left out how we helped install many of the "brutal dictatorships" worldwide in pursuit of the Carter Doctrine. Saddam Hussein, Mubarak, the Saudis. The Carter Doctrine was useful in it's day, but the world has turned, and we will likely be oil independent within four years, if Obama doesn't somehow manage to screw it up via Federal Government overreach. Oil independence eliminates the reason why the Carter Doctrine was created in the first place. Let them butcher each other. It doesn't matter. The world has changed. Evolve or die.

5) "It took troops on the ground to capture Saddam. We used troops to kill bin laden."
Who cares? You are still thinking like a dinosaur. We used troops to kill Saddam based on nation building efforts. Old thinking. We used troops to kill Bin Laden because we wanted irrefutable proof that we got him. Old thinking.

New age drone technology involves building drones the size of a wasp. If not now, then within a few years we will be able to fly a drone up a targets ass, pull a fecal sample, verify identity over the air, and self destruct the drone and target. Follow it up with a few cruise missiles taking out the leadership of the nation harboring the asshole, and then go back to watching football.

6) "[Rounding up the Japs] is generally described as a black mark on America's past as a land of the free. Its considered a mistake."
By who, Noam Chomsky? Just because we paid reparations doesn't mean it wasn't the right thing to do at the time. The Japanese were far more of a closed society than the Germans. There were reasons behind the decision making.

7) "You'll ravage anyone who isn't a White American whenever you feel like it. blah blah blah blah"
How convenient of you to ignore the part of my post where I explicitly ignored skin color, profiling instead by religious affiliation. Do try and focus. The muzzies who bombed the Boston marathon where white. Caucasians by definition - from the caucuses. Responses like yours highlight the reasons we need a war on political correctness. If it the common factor to all these acts of terror were that the perps were pacific islanders, we would be stupid not to specifically racially profile the perps.

8) "if you wore an Islamic turban every day of your life"
You are conflating Hindus and Muslims. Skull caps are the head gear of most Muslims.

9) Anyone else have any other ideas?
I know one person who clearly has no ideas.

Corwin: I don't like everything Obama does. Alternatively as stated elsewhere in this forum I defended Bush at various times.

You make some totally whacked claims. Obama isn't kidnapping suspects flying them around the globe depositing them in foreign jails or torture chambers under the control of foreign nations. That is what rendition means in its current context. It happened under Bush Cheney. Its not occurring now. If it were occurring now I'd be against it. Its an extension of torture. Let your "allies" torture somebody.

Obama's DOJ is standing with the previous administration not to make what occurred under Bush/Cheney public. Why? I don't know. If he wanted to score political points about Bush/Cheney spreading torture around to other nations...maybe he'd make it public. Maybe he doesn't want to expose other nations.

How the hell would I know. Its secret. If he starts flying suspected terrorists around and deposits them in Saudi jails to have the Saudi's torture them I'd be against it.

The US military sends troops around the world all the time without Congressional approval. You don't need Congressional approval to send troops to some nation, especially if the nation holds existing American troops and approves it. That is what occurred in Spain.

the troops were sent there to fly into Northern Africa if necessary to defend embassies. That could be Libya, Egypt, who knows where.

Did you complain about the situation in Bengzhai??? Did you ravage Obama? I don't recall. But this is a way to prevent that situation from happening again. Do you want Islamic terrorists to attack a lot of US embassies??? Either it seems like you do...or maybe you don't read the substance of articles and just create sensationalist posts that are far removed from reality and what the articles actually describe.

In mid April a bi-partisan group headed by a former democrat and republican members of Congress made an announcement after several years of study. The Republican worked at Homeland Security and knew the people who were described as responsible for the torture. He acknowledged it took a lot of evidence to convince him of the accuracy of the report. He also said he thought the people in power at that time (Bush/Cheney) were doing what they thought was correct.

Its news. Its recent, and it is a sad commentary on what occurred, if you don't believe that Americans should torture. You say you don't think we should torture. I agree. So does Senator McCain. O-nation is evidently all for it, if he thinks its necessary. It seems like O-nation and Cheney are in sync on this issue.

Currently and over the past 4.5 years nobody has accused or found an iota of evidence that Obama is torturing any terrorists we've captured. If someone finds the evidence, I'll be against it.

Should we be sending drones over Pakistan and some other places? Are civilians and kids dying when they bomb some targets?? Probably. Also some terrorists, and hopefully a lot of them are dying.

Terrorists, as you have described, when discussing Hamas and Gaza, like to live among civilians. There is no easy clean way to kill them off. Its a sh1tty way to do things when civilians die alongside the terrorists.

Currently none of these Islamic lands are getting rid of the terrorists on their own. Evidently the Pakistan military has liked them. Yemen is weak. Haven't the Saudi's gone in there to kill some terrorists?

There are no sweet "happy ever endings" when it comes to the middle east.

You want to read something ironic. I read that currently Israeli's feel a sense of relative calm. Their missile defense system totally messed up Hamas, and they didn't have to send troops into Gaza to end those missile attacks. Saved some lives of Israeli soldiers but saved infinitely more lives of folks in Gaza.

They fear the threat of Iran...but they see the armies of Syria, Egypt, and other potential enemies as far less threatening. They just acknowledged their air force blasted a convoy in Syria, supposedly delivering missiles to Hezbollah. that is the second time they've done that. They probably like that. Since Syria went into mass chaos its the first opportunity they have had to stop the flow of missiles to Hezbollah. The UN was supposed to do that but has never done so. The Israeli's spend more per person on their military than any other nation but recently with how events are going they've been able to lower that burden on their nation.

Cr@p in the middle east and out of fundamentalist islamic terrorists cause all sorts of issues. It caused 9/11. Bush/Cheney included torture (per the report) to battle the problems with fundamentalist terrorists. Right now the complete and utter crazy disintegration of Egypt as a functioning nation and the battles in Syria are providing the Israeli's with a relative level of calm, of course subject to the Iranians building Nukes. (per the article I read)

But its always a cesspool and it will always create issues and problems.